Court

More than four years later, Kim Dotcom’s legal battles (at least in New Zealand) may be close to an end. His final appeal to avoid extradition to face charges in the U.S started yesterday in Auckland’s High Court, and is expected to last six weeks.
And, in a first for any case in New Zealand (and in typical Kim Dotcom fashion), the appeal is being live-streamed.
All of the… Read More

Ever since it moved into the mainstream Bitcoin has had a bit of an identity crisis.
Mainly because no one is really sure whether it should be considered money or property. The IRS says it’s property for tax purposes, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission says it’s a commodity, and most Bitcoin advocates like to say it’s the world’s most advanced… Read More

A Federal Appeals Court this month issued a ruling that makes password-sharing a federal crime under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. That has given many Americans pause, as sharing passwords to online services like Netflix and HBO GO is a fairly common activity these days — and now, thanks to the verdict, one that breaks federal law. But don’t panic just yet: Netflix is still… Read More

Last week the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued an opinion that an employee acted “without authorization” when he used a former co-worker’s login (with their permission) to gain access to “computer data owned by the former employer.” This led to the court upholding a decision that the employee violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), a federal… Read More

A UK Court of Appeal has ordered Apple to remove a statement on its website following a court ruling in which Apple lost an appeal against a ruling that Samsung’s Galaxy Tab tablets do not infringe the design of the iPad. The judges have now criticized Apple for posting “incorrect” and “untrue” information, and ordered Cupertino to replace the statement within… Read More

Monster Cable has a history of suing companies with the word ‘monster’ in their name. An indoor glow-in-the-dark mininture golf company named Monster Golf felt Monster Cable’s wrath last May. This time, it’s Denco’s apple or sweet corn flavored Monster Deer Block.
Why anyone would confuse an overpriced, AV cable and hunting bait is beyond us. So thankfully… Read More

In a last ditch effort Gary McKinnon, the UK hacker who allegedly hacked in to the Pentagon, is now taking his case to the European Court on Human Rights. McKinnon feels that his human rights were violated when the U.S. offered him a plea-bargain (something the UK courts to not do) to get a lighter sentence. He felt that by accepting this he would be opting himself out of a fair trial. Of… Read More

Penny-Arcade
Everyone’s favorite real life Lionel Hutz could find himself disbarred in the near future. Jack Thompson walked out of a Florida court room today, claiming that it was a sham hearing and that the presiding judge was “incompetent” and “arrogant.” (Sounds like him, too.) Since he walked out in a huff, the Florida bar asked for an “enhanced… Read More

Apple Canada Inc. is offering $45 credits to Canadians who own the first-third generation iPods purchased before June 24th, 2004. This settlement is a result of two iPod owners suing when their one-year-old iPods died after 3 hours of use, not 8 like the packaging claims prompting to subvert the standard image of “nice” Canadians and encouraging them to file a class-action suit… Read More

Latest Crunch Report

Companies offering online file-storage may want to pull out of the Japanese market real soon. A recent court ruling in Tokyo deemed a company called Image City guilty of copyright infringement. Why? JASRAC, an organization that collects the bucks for public music performances, sued Image City because their online file-storage service MYUTA lets you listen to your music files over your cellphone. Read More

Sheesh. I wonder if Symantec is going after the guy TorrentFreak interviewed. I doubt it, as Symantec is attacking eight companies it says illegally copied its software to avoid licensing fees. The software maker is looking for $55 million in damages and jury trials, meaning this just isn’t a case of Joe Blow burning a copy of Norton AntiVirus for his co-worker.
According to the… Read More

Over in Minnesota, a group of imprisoned sex offenders are pissed off because guards confiscated PCs they were using in their cells/rooms. So like any American, they took it to a court of appeals, only to have it shot down by a judge with half a brain. I’m guessing the court appearance went something like this:
Judge: Why should I let a group of sex offenders keep their PCs?
Inmates: So… Read More

Sure you can pin the blame on your unsecured router when the RIAA or MPAA comes knocking at your door, but when it’s the FBI and you’re accused of having tons of child pornography, don’t think you’re getting out of this one so easily. A guy in Texas had his home raided and the police found lots of child porn on his computer. When confronted, he blamed his… Read More

I realize this might be hard to fathom, but guess what? The RIAA still sucks and is still wasting everyone’s time with file-sharing lawsuits. In fact, the RIAA apparently wasted too much time with the University of Nebraska and now the school is hitting back. U of N has sent the RIAA an invoice to the RIAA requesting that it reimburse the university for all the expenses it’s… Read More

IBM has announced that it has filed against Amazon two patent infringement suits in two courts in the Eastern District of Texas. The manufacturer stated that it has attempted to resolve with the retailer the issues for four years.
According to The Inquirer, the patents in question are:
5,796,97 – presenting apps in an interactive service; 5,442,771 – storing data in an… Read More